


Forgive Me, Father

by Oop



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Billy is Billy, M/M, Masturbation, Steve is not good, Where to start?, a bit of steve and nancy, a truly terrifying number of religious references/metaphors, an original character, btw this is like a 95 percent true and accurate depiction of catholic school as i experienced it, maybe a very unemphasized humiliation kink?, steve pines for billy, the catholic school au no one asked for
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-13
Updated: 2019-03-13
Packaged: 2019-11-16 12:34:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18094415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oop/pseuds/Oop
Summary: Steve doesn’t know much about Billy Hargrove, but he knows that the Saint Joseph Catholic School uniform is not supposed to look sinful.





	Forgive Me, Father

**Author's Note:**

  * For [uncaringerinn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/uncaringerinn/gifts), [eternalgoldfish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternalgoldfish/gifts).



> You guys remember that time uncaringerinn (aka desert-dino) wrote a prep school headcanon and absolutely slayed me? Because I do. And here's the result.
> 
> Endless, all-consuming love to uncaringerinn and eternalgoldfish for being my hype people and helping me enjoy writing again! I seriously cannot thank them enough. They are wonderful, beautiful, intelligent, enthusiastic, creative, and supportive and if anything ever happened to them I'd kill everyone in this fandom and then myself. So this is dedicated to them!
> 
> Special thanks to juniper_tree, who introduced me to "Heaven Sent" by Philip Millsap, which finally drove me to write this after ~months~ of sitting on the idea. (Take Me to Church was another big inspo.)
> 
> And, finally, thank you to the cheer squad who volunteered their time and talents to help push me through this! <3 you all!

Steve doesn’t know much about Billy Hargrove, but he knows that the Saint Joseph Catholic School uniform is _not_ supposed to look _sinful_. Billy must have ordered pants two sizes too small because the navy slacks have never looked like _that_ on any student here before. Like, Steve can usually make anything look good, but Billy takes the purposely frumpy uniform and makes it _cut_. Even the blazer, squarish on the most stocky of them, somehow clings tight to Billy’s waist, shoulders, and arms. If it didn’t look so _good_ , it would look like hand-me-downs long outgrown. It _should_ look that way. Maybe the way Billy pairs it all with heavy boots and too many rings and the long necklace and that absolutely scandalous earring pulls it together.  
  
He knows that Billy’s hair goes against code too, but no teacher is going to make him cut it when he looks identical to every painting of the Archangel Michael Steve’s ever seen. (Personally, Steve can think of a few paintings of Lucifer that Billy also resembles, but the teachers don’t seem to recognize that when Billy flashes blue eyes and white teeth, turning them Eve to his serpent.)  
  
There’s a lot of shit that Billy gets away with that no other student at St. Joe’s could _ever_ . At lunch break, Billy unbuttons his shirt practically to his naval, showing off all that California skin and firm muscle while his cigarette incenses the wind. Steve _swears_ the girls’ skirts miraculously get shorter in response. When it’s time to go back in for class, Billy never quite manages to get his shirt buttoned all the way back up.  
  
Once, Steve walks in on Billy smoking in the bathroom, ancient window pried open. And yeah, Steve and Tommy have smoked in here since the moment they started ninth grade, but Billy doesn’t just _smoke_ . He wraps his lips around each pull like it’s really doing something for him, like it’s a _craving_ and not an addiction, and Steve feels hot like the cherry on the end of Billy’s cigarette while he washes his hands. He fights not to stare at Billy in the mirror. “Just _blow_ it, why don’t you?” Steve says, watches the grin roll out on Billy’s face, smoke seeping from the cracks of his teeth.

“Oh, you’d _like_ that, wouldn’t you, pretty boy?”  
  
Steve rolls his eyes and leaves without drying his hands. When he catches his own flush in a window as he walks back to class, he deems it anger and decides he hates Billy Hargrove.  
  
During Mass that same morning, Billy sneaks his hand up Marybeth’s skirt and pinches her thigh so hard that she squeaks. He’s _just_ smooth enough to cover it with a cough, but casts a knowing look at Tommy as Marybeth glows bright red.

Steve fumes all through the homily, _praying_ for Mass to end so he can beat the shit out of Billy Hargrove for being so bold, so _gross_. Maybe Steve’s a hypocrite because he’s slid his hand up plenty of skirts at Mass, done more than pinch, but he’s known Marybeth since preschool and she always, _always_ slaps Steve’s hand away. Most of them go to Mass because they have to, but Marybeth _wants_ to. She always volunteers to do readings and sing the responses. She actually goes to confession _outside_ of school. She carries a rosary in her pocket because she _uses_ it. _Voluntarily_. Not just when Father Peter assigns penance. Everyone knows that Marybeth is the only one of them making it into heaven. It makes what Billy does that much more disturbing. Even Tommy, who latched onto Billy as soon as he stepped foot in school, smiles with hesitation.  
  
Through all the morning classes, Steve burns, imagining the satisfaction of his fist meeting Billy’s face. But Steve’s righteousness turns to ash in his mouth when he steps outside at lunch, ready to _swing_ , only to see Billy pressing Marybeth up against a tree, kissing her deep and easy until Marybeth’s clearly having _some_ _kind_ of spiritual experience, but sure as hell not with Jesus.  
  
Steve can’t look away. Not until Billy notices him staring and _winks_.

Billy is honestly the devil, or a demon, here to corrupt. Even when he’s not wagging his tongue like an _animal_ , even when he’s so bored at Mass that not even Marybeth’s ever-shrinking skirt can keep him focused, he’s still a _torture_. Because Steve always has to fight whenever Billy’s nearby. Fight to keep his eyes from Billy’s thighs, visibly flexing through his too-tight pants when he kneels or stands, fight not to lick his lips after he drinks from the chalice right after Billy, fight not to yank Marybeth’s skirt down a few inches because… because…

Because _nothing_ . It’s just hormones, or something.  
  
Father Peter has said that having thoughts about sex isn’t a sin. _Acting_ on them is. Steve’s sinned plenty with the girls in his class, never feels bad about it, rarely confesses it, but the sin of watching Billy unbutton his shirt every day, the sin of watching him smoke like that’s the only grace he seeks, the sin of watching him turn Marybeth into a slut when it’s clear (at least to Steve, who knows that game so familiarly) that he’s just doing it because he _can_ , not because he _likes_ her…  
  
Steve thinks that’s a whole other level of transgression.  
  
“...Forgive me, father, for I have sinned. It’s been one month since my last confession,” Steve quotes through the screen in the confessional. He usually sits facing Father Peter, because he likes the disbelieving look he gets when Father Peter asks him, “That’s everything?” and Steve lies and says, “Yes, Father.” Then Father Peter will give him a penance heavy enough for all the sins he _watches_ Steve commit from the pulpit but that Steve won’t confess, and they both know it doesn’t matter because Steve won’t do the penance anyway.    
  
But today, Steve feels guilty. Today, he feels like he’s _actually_ , maybe offended God and he’s afraid to face his priest, afraid to confess. So he hides behind the screen, tries to convince himself that Father Peter won’t recognize his voice, reminds himself that Father Peter is Bible-bound to keep his secrets.  
  
Father Peter waits patiently. Steve sweats under his blazer. He’s seen confessionals much bigger than this, entire side rooms in churches, but not here. No, here at St. Joe, the confessional is a little box built at the back of the nave, too cramped and too hot. Steve can smell the coffee on Father Peter’s breath through the screen. He thinks this is supposed to replicate a little piece of hell, just enough to sweat out all your misdeeds.  
  
Finally, Steve croaks, “I’ve been looking.” Another pause, where the next words get stuck in Steve’s throat. By the time he gets them out, barely a whisper, he’s practically hoarse. “At another boy.”  
  
Steve doesn’t say anything else. He has no other confessions to make, but he wishes he _did_ so he could bury what he’d just said, make it seem _small_ compared to the amount of everything else.  
  
After a while, Father Peter says, “We all have unwholesome thoughts. It’s only human. But it’s important not to act on them. You have to remind yourself that they are temptations from the devil.” Then he gives Steve a penance. Doesn’t say anything else. So Steve thanks him and leaves on shaking legs.  

As he returns to his pew, gripping the rosary in his pocket, Billy stands, brushes by him so closely that Steve can smell his cologne, can feel the heat of him. The church lights simmer low and too yellow, but Steve always sees Billy like he’s under a spotlight, his blonde hair a halo catching all the light in the room. So there’s no way he misses the way Billy winks, the way he lolls his tongue out like he’s going to eat Steve’s penance before Steve even has a chance to kneel in his pew. Steve stops in the middle of the aisle, but Billy keeps walking, doesn’t look back as steps into the confessional and closes the door behind him. Steve clutches his rosary so hard that he can feel the cross imprinting his palm. 

Halfway through Steve’s third “Our Father,” Billy slides into the pew in front of him, lowers himself to the kneeler, pulls his rosary out of his pocket. Steve wonders if Billy does it for show, like Steve does most times, or if he dutifully drones through his penance. He wonders if, like Steve, Billy jumbles up the words to the prayers after he’s said them too many times in a row until he just prays in his head, “Please, God, forgive me,” and hopes it gets through the storm of “Hail Mary”s and “Our Father”s in God’s ear. He wonders what kind of sins Billy confesses. Did he tell Father Peter that he’s a demon, come to tempt Marybeth and Tommy and Steve and every other weak soul in their school?  
  
Maybe he can hear Steve’s thoughts, because as soon as Steve thinks it, Billy glances over his shoulder at Steve, grins with the points of his teeth, and Steve shudders. “Quit looking at me,” he hisses under his breath, checking that Miss Finley can’t hear him. 

“You first, pretty boy,” Billy says, and Steve goes hot with it. Billy has noticed; he knows that Steve is always watching him, can’t _not_ . But then, Billy _wants_ people to look at him. Why else would he dress that way? Act that way? Steve’s sin might be looking, but Billy’s sin is _making_ him look. That’s got to be equally bad, right? Worse, probably.  
  
Miss Finley shushes them. Billy flashes her a sheepish smile, all saccharine charm, and immediately the edges of her face soften, forgiving.

“Be a good boy and finish your penance,” Billy whispers through his teeth, then turns back around and tips his forehead against his interlaced fingers, the posterboy of sincere prayer. Steve sits back in his pew, _forgets_ his penance, and _fumes_ through the rest of the hour. The rosary in his hand, red like rubies, bites into his skin as he twists it.

 

\---

 

Their class isn’t so large that Billy can just immediately blend in, but he does carve a spot for himself, a daily fixture that continues to surprise, so Steve continues to hate him, what he does to Steve’s thoughts. _They are temptations from the devil_ , Steve hears Father Peter say in his head. And as much as Steve knows that’s _bullshit_ , it makes him feel better. He’s not broken. He’s not wrong. It’s _Billy_ who’s the temptation. He’s the one getting their entire class all twisted up.  
  
Steve decides to direct his temptation elsewhere.

Nancy Wheeler goes to the public school across town. When Steve starts dating her she seems _almost_ as uptight as Marybeth was before Billy Hargrove, which makes it fun even if it doesn’t last long; after all, Steve knows all the right words to say and all the right games to play and Nancy hasn’t grown up in the perverted social scheme of Catholic school. Parents always talk about public school, about the _exposure_ kids get there, but the truth is, the Hawkins High students are _naive_ compared to St. Joe students. It makes it easy to draw Nancy in, because Steve is that nice boy from that nice private school, he goes to church three times a week, he says, “Yes, ma’am,” and, “Thank you, sir,” and sometimes leads grace at dinner. And then it’s easy to offer, “I’ll help you study for chemistry,” and easy to get Nancy to open her window too late at night and easy to press a beer into Nancy’s hand at a pool party and easy to convince her to ditch her too-sensible friend and come up to his room. 

Sometimes Nancy comes to St. Joe’s for lunch, and Steve loves that because, with Nancy at his side, it becomes Billy watching _him_ instead. Even with Marybeth still hanging on his arm, begging with her eyes for Billy to deflower her even more thoroughly, Billy smokes and watches Nancy open the tin of peanut butter cookies she brought for Steve. Steve doesn’t like peanut butter all that much, thinks he may have already told Nancy that but maybe not. Still, he plucks one out with a smile and looks Billy dead in the eye as he takes an overly enthusiastic bite.  
  
“What’s his _problem_?” Nancy murmurs one day as Billy glares at them between draws on his cigarette.

Steve shrugs even as a thrill zips up his spine because Billy watches them so intently that someone else has finally noticed -- it’s not just Steve, not just some warped, wishful thinking. “I think he’s jealous,” he says into Nancy’s ear, smile broad and smug. Anyone else might turn pink at the suggestion. Nancy’s nose just wrinkles distastefully. It’s a little disappointing, her lack of reaction, when it resonates with Steve like a victory. When he finally gets to wink back at Billy, watch him scoff and turn away, Steve grins.  
  
Nancy is meant to be a distraction, but somewhere down the line, Steve realizes she’s not. He loves her. She’s smart and clear-minded, focused, ambitious, intent, _fierce_. She’s everything Steve’s dad ever wanted Steve to be, and maybe Steve isn’t any of those, but maybe, for Nancy, he could be. He’s willing to try, at least, and that’s already more than he had before. All because he loves her. Steve loves Nancy and she doesn’t say it back, but it’s fine. They’re fine.

Billy stops being even a blip on Steve’s radar. For the most part. Sometimes Steve’s skin lights up with heat, and sometimes Steve still has to look over because he knows (from studying with Nancy) that the hottest fires burn blue and that searing sensation can only come from Billy Hargrove’s eyes. Otherwise, they steer clear of each other.  
  
At the next confession, Steve sits across from Father Peter, just like he used to, and he smiles when he says he has nothing to confess.  
  
Everything is fine until it isn’t. 

It’s all _bullshit_ .  
  
_Steve_ is bullshit.

Nancy is drunk, punch spilled all down the front of her white, white shirt like she’d cut open her own chest and not Steve’s. Because Steve knows what this is. He knows a breakup when he sees one, even if he doesn’t really understand _why_. Nancy’s parents are getting divorced, Steve gets it, and that sucks, but was it really so wrong for him to think that taking Nancy to a party would help her forget just for a second? Apparently.

Steve asks Jonathan to take Nancy home. Feels half sickened and half vindicated by it; he vividly remembers those photos of Nancy undressing, but Steve has never been the good boy from his reputation and he’s so mad, he’s _bullshit_ , and Nancy can be grateful Steve even bothered making sure she made it home at all.  
  
It sits in him like poison. _Bullshit_ . Burns just under his skin. _Bullshit_ . Burns behind his eyes. Burns deeper and more painful than Billy’s eyes ever have, than _anything_ ever has. Burns and smolders until Steve goes hollow inside, just a shell full of smoldering pieces and smoke.  
  
He tries to fill himself back up, falls back into King Steve like a well-worn uniform. Tears through all the parties in town, fucks through all the girls in town. Part of him hopes it gets back to Nancy, but she’s not the jealous type.

Steve is, though. And he hoards it, that sticky, green miasma, tucks it right into his chest and lets it fester for weeks as he watches Nancy become _Nancy and Jonathan._ They go to the diner, they go to the movies, they go to the arcade, they go to all the places Nancy and Steve used to go. Except parties. Neither Nancy nor Jonathan are the partying type. It’s Steve’s one reprieve, and devil take him if he doesn’t _abuse_ it.  
  
Lindy Baker dives for Steve’s tonsils just as he sees Billy walk in over her shoulder. It’s whatever; sometimes they end up at the same parties. It’s fine. Tonight, Billy wears an open leather jacket, nothing but smooth skin underneath, jeans tighter than _sin_ , perfectly curled hair, and a grin that gobbles up light like a black hole. His entrances always raise a cry like Revelations, people throwing their cups in the air like a teenage salute. _All hail the king._  
  
But this time, right behind Billy, Marybeth shuffles into the room, clinging to Billy’s arm like he’s her _boyfriend_ , like he’s _safe_ , like he’s not even more _bullshit_ than Steve. They walk in, _Billy and Marybeth_ , and Steve pulls away from the heat of Lindy’s mouth. “What the fuck?” he says, and steps around Lindy without a word of explanation. She’ll forgive him sooner or later; everyone always does.

“Harrington,” Billy says, licking over his front teeth when Steve stops in front of him.  
  
Marybeth peeks around Billy’s side. “Steve!” she chirps, clearly glad to recognize someone.  
  
Steve inclines his head at her. Then swings a fist and smashes Billy right on the jaw. He doesn’t even realize he’s doing it until the crunch of bone-on-bone splits his knuckles. It hurts. It _sings_ . The entire party seems to gasp at once, then go silent. For Steve, everything has narrowed to this: to the point of contact between him and Billy. And it feels right, finally. Something wrong has slithered into Steve and settled too deep ever since Billy stepped into town, but now something has _almost_ corrected itself. It’s so close, everything Steve’s wanted since he first saw Billy, the most satisfying thing to ever rip over his nerves and tingle up his spine.  
  
Then Billy _laughs_ , too loud, too mean. He spits blood onto the welcome mat, smears it slow over his lips with that tongue, then comes back up with a stained glass smile. “King Steve,” he says, too quiet. And then, too loud: “King Steve!” Like he’s announcing a wrestling match. There should be cheers, not dead silence, echoing in Steve’s ears.  
  
And Steve just... doesn’t _get_ it. He doesn’t know what Billy’s doing. His knuckles ache and his throat aches and his chest aches and he can’t _explain_ any of it. It had been so close, so close to feeling _right_ , and now it feels _worse_ , and Steve doesn’t know what’s happening but he knows _humiliation_ looms over him, knows everyone in the room can see it. Billy’s eyes burn hotter than usual, a wild sun flare aimed straight for Steve.

Another laugh cuts Steve to the bone, and then, before he can register that Billy’s moved at all, there’s a hand in his hair, nails scraping his scalp. Steve hisses, but when Billy yanks down and back, he crumples, falls onto his knees hard enough to bruise.  
  
The humiliation that looms over him is named Billy Hargrove, grinning maniacally despite the cutting calm of his eyes. He knows _exactly_ what he’s doing. For a moment, they stay there, staring at each other. Steve’s heart pounds, anticipation an icy drip down his spine. Maybe, he thinks, this is right, though. Maybe, when Billy finally hits him back, everything will snap how it’s supposed to, like a dislocated shoulder twisting back into place.  
  
Billy leans forward until they’re practically nose-to-nose, Steve breathing heavy while Billy watches with calculating eyes. Then, after too long, Billy leans in and licks a bloody stripe from Steve’s jaw to his temple, one long, searing brand that smells like copper and burns like hellfire. Steve’s hand, where he’s been scraping at Billy’s wrist, goes slack. He stops breathing entirely, the heat from his face seeping directly into his blood, lighting him on fire from the inside. He watches Billy straighten, tongue still out and dripping red, his own blood, and Steve’s chest squeezes, struck at the image because Steve has never seen something so _savage_. No painting of Lucifer has ever looked like this, and Steve thinks if one did, a lot more people would be properly afraid of hell.

  
Just as quickly as he’d grabbed it, Billy lets go of Steve's hair, fingers sticky with Steve’s Farrah Fawcett. Then he throws his arms out, says, “Long live the king!” and Steve doesn’t know what happens after that because he’s stumbling to his feet, shoving past a concerned Marybeth to get out the door, to get air, to get to his car.  
  
Only when he locks himself in his bathroom at home and _sees_ the rusty mark on his cheek in the mirror, touches the edges of it with shaking fingers, does he realize he’s half-hard and still _aching_ .  
  
He doesn’t have to remind himself that his thoughts are temptations from the devil. He doesn’t have to remind himself not to act on them. He’s well beyond that, well beyond salvation, as he presses into his own palm and rolls into thoughts of Billy Hargrove grinning down at him. And if he tentatively slips two fingers into his mouth while he does it, if he slips to his knees again while he does it… Well, that’s between Steve and God. Or maybe Steve and Satan. Either way, nobody has to know.

**Author's Note:**

> If you're also a Catholic school brat, hit me with your best stories. @areyouactuallystupid


End file.
